christmas splurge

© Joselito Briones

room fragrance from cire trudon - we love the "ernesto" scent but even if we didn't like any of their scents, we would've bought one anyway just for the bottle-atomizer.

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thanksgiving potluck at work

© Joselito Briones
lovely people, good food.


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mochi from daigaharakinseiken?

© Joselito Briones
our neighbors arisa and the kids are back from their japan trip and they brought us this present - best mochi ever!  it comes with an ampoule of molasses to drip on the mochi - how nice is that?  i googled the image and it looks like it comes from a store called "daigaharakinseiken", but as i can't read the characters i can't tell for sure.

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dave warns bett - a scene from "house of trixxx"

© Joselito Briones
so this scene takes place before the other one.

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first completed scene of "house of trixxx"

© Joselito Briones
This took several rehearsals, 3 hours of filming, 10 takes (different angles) and days of editing - resulting in less than 3mins of the movie. I haven't even started on putting in the audio that was recorded separately (crappy audio on this video is from camera).  Bett/Zirconia is played by Aja and Dave by Edwin de Leon.

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gorl wants food

© Joselito Briones
random photo time.  this one was taken in a safari park in indonesia earlier this year.


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edwin joins the cast of house of trixxx

© Joselito Briones
actor edwin de leon joins the cast as of "house of trixxx" as dave, bett/zirconia's younger brother.  am so glad of his enthusiasm in tackling the role.

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preparing for a shoot

we're finally doing a couple of scenes, and i don't wanna mess up so i did this very rough story board. i thought a dp/camera guy was gonna join us and i was looking forward to concentrating with directing, but... so i'm gonna end up doing those too.  i went to aja's and momo's to check the room we're shooting in, and try to dress it up a bit.  hope things go well.

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a meta-mystery game of a neo-noir movie making kind

© Joselito Briones

i've turned the g+ page of +House of Trixxx into a meta-mystery game.  because, why not?

big fan of sherlock?  fond of nancy drew-ing?  you think we're now over-saturated with mysteries and crime-dramas and you can predict every cliché and every ending of every whodunnit?

let's take it a step further.  predict the outcome of this story without seeing the actual movie.  why be Sherlock when you can be Doyle?  Why be Ms. Marple when you can be Ms. Christie?  ever written or thought of writing a crime-drama? predict how this story is structured and what's gonna happen.  every post is a clue.   no worries, even if the movie doesn't get made, the screenplay is already registered with the WGA, so the storyline you're solving for will be based on that.

post your predictions on the link above.  correct predictions wins a portion of the script as additional clue.  if you can piece together the whole plot, you'll win a copy of the entire screenplay.

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1st day of rehearsal for house of trixxx

© Joselito Briones
This is one of the scenes that we did on the 1st day of rehearsal.  Momo was kind enough to stand in for the role of Dave (the character has since been renamed Paolo and hasn't been cast), Bett's cop brother.  In this scene, Paolo confronts Bett for withholding information about an on-going murder investigation.

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main drag characters complete as ms. ivy ferriya joins the house of trixxx project

© Joselito Briones

welp, there it is.  now that ms ivy ferriya has joined the project, all the major drag queen roles are cast.  now on to the other characters.

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rimowa - now that's what i call service

my rimowa suitcase          © Joselito Briones

i've had this rimowa suitcase for 5 years now and it's been with me everywhere.  it's supposed to be a carry-on, but there's been a couple of times when i had to check it in.  the last time it happened, i noticed a missing screw-on foot (stand).  i brought it to rimowa's new york shop , and they repaired it for me even tho i bought this one in hong kong.  they even checked the locks and found that they are a bit shaky, so they repaired that too.  at no cost! (and look at that, they even decorated it with a ribbon)

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severed doll head shimmery purse

© Joselito Briones

the sort of thing one will find on sale at the local flea market in my neighborhood. severed doll head shimmery purse (note the tiny wreath detail below the head), matching cape/shawl knit with angora trim, pink camisole, salmon-colored sailor-collar top with lace trimmings.


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happy international drag day

drag queen ivy ferriya               © Joselito Briones

i did not know there's such a thing as international drag day.  well, turns out there is, and it's today!  photo above is of super talented ivy ferriya

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jemma and momoshade also joined the "house of trixxx" project

Jemma and MomoShade    © Joselito Briones

two more lovely queens agreed to take part in the "house of trixxx" project.  jemma will take on the femme-fatale character and momoshade will be taking on ms. trixxx of the title.

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aja is on board

fierce drag queen "aja" joins the cast

well, the project has gained momentum. super talented drag queen aja has agreed to be part of the "house of trixxx" project. more updates soon!

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hearts' desire

© Joselito Briones

before they're monks, they're humans, they're kids.

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a short scene from "house of trixxx"

© Joselito Briones
so... yesterday i did this photoshoot, supposedly with drag queen extraordinaire aja, but when i got to the location there were 3 other drag queens there and they were all so nice to join the shoot - ivy ferriya, momo shade, and jemma (she's wearing the "die" cap).  currently, i always take the opportunity to ask people to do a scene from my project, and they did it.  video above is the second take - the first one was all reading from my iphone.  considering they did it in a snap of a finger. they were so much fun. they also shared some major T (contestants who made it in the show) on season 8 of rupaul's drag race.

pardon the quality, i wasn't prepared to do video.  one of those days when i wished i brought a tripod.

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p.s. for some reason sharing the link to this picks up random images from this page as thumbnail photo, so i'll just put here below the cover photo for this project, so maybe that can be picked up as thumbnail.

© Joselito Briones

how is pinterest even legal?

 

a commercial company copying and putting images up in their website, without permission, that is for exclusive use of people with +pinterest account. am i missing something?  i was under the impression that their reasoning was that it's no different than google images, where images are shown in search result, and that theirs is just a way of people organizing it.  but, hey, anyone can use google image search, but with pinterest, you have to have an account and logged in to be able to use it.  no, that's definitely not the same. i cry douchebaggery!

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reading for "house of trixxx"

© Joselito Briones
i told you about the "house of trixxx" screenplay that i wrote a while back, right?  well i've decided to film some scenes from it.  i placed an ad on craigslist for actors and this is matt benson reading a short scene. he's reading for the part of shane - a drag queen noob from a religious family. in this scene he's being interrogated by the police, being a key witness to a murder. hopefully i can post a better scene video when we record it with proper setting and with the dialogue memorized.  this was our first meeting, at brooklyn's anchored inn, over fries.

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kids walking through rice fields to get to school

© Joselito Briones

taken in my hometown in the philippines when i went for a walk one morning.  the best part is when i discovered upon inspecting the photo closely that one of the boys was holding a bird to bring to school - just the sort of thing kids did when i was growing up.

© Joselito Briones

anyway, the photo seemed popular when i used it as my page cover in fb, so i thought i'd post it here.


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4th of july fireworks

© Joselito Briones 4th of july fireworks in new york as scene from our building's rooftop.

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table reading for "sharp shooters" sitcom script

© Joselito Briones so i wrote a screenplay for a tv pilot that i submitted to a studio - no it wasn't picked up, but i thought i'll develop it anyway.  it's a silly sitcom with stock photographers as main characters.

photo above shows me, charles, and my neighbors tim, sim, shuno and another neighbor (who prefer to be unidentified) doing a table reading at tradesman in brooklyn.

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my mother the player

found one of my stock photos on a wall poster for cotton:on in jakarta

..with some others also from stocksy. norie and irma happily posed in front of it for scale.  the poster is for fashion company cotton:on.

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early morning walk

for someone who lives in brooklyn, a sunrise 3-mile walk in the midst of freshly planted rice fields is such a treat.  yep, back in the philippines for a short visit.

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p.s.

i forgot to say that the start of this walk is less than half a km from where i went to elementary school, which in turn is less than a hundred meters from the house i grew up in, and yet i've never been to this narrow road until this morning.  as a child i was always told never to wander beyond the school, and so i never did. 30 years forward - i told my mom this morning that i wanted to take a walk on this road, she still offered to find someone to go with me.  the women in my family are shameless when it comes to (over)protecting their offsprings.

is there a way to tell a chef that you didn't like his food?

© Joselito Briones

norie and i are visiting irma in jakarta - part of norie's birthday celebration, i guess.  eager to show us the city, irma invited us to dine at skye restaurant atop one of the tallest buildings in the city.  

the view was great and all, but i thought the food was heavy-handed (tom kha soup was heavily coconut cream, the galangal flavor was totally defeated, the seafood in it barely noticeable - as if the chef was totally aware of it, he added bits of dry seaweed to remind the diner that it really was meant to be a seafood dish, which only muddied the flavor;  the braised pork, which is meant to be a house specialty, was waaaay too sweet and the caramelization crossed (and went way past) the line to burnt bitterness; and although the flavors in the crispy pork belly was good, the pork rind wasn't crispy at all. (we were told that pork dishes are hard to come by in this city for religious reasons, so we thought we should have them when they're available)

i would have been content to ignore it all, of course, the view and the company having been more than enough to enjoy the evening - except, well, when it was all over, on the way down from the restaurant, in the lift that clearly displayed a poster photo of the restaurant's chef, irma noticed his striking resemblance to one of the lift passengers. "you look like that guy," she said to the passenger, pointing at the chef's poster-photo. "that's me," he answered, smiling. chit chat ensued, and then the inevitable happened:  he asked us if we enjoyed the food.

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